


A movement alone

by RahDamon



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-19
Updated: 2016-09-19
Packaged: 2018-08-15 21:20:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8073103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RahDamon/pseuds/RahDamon
Summary: What if Copycat hadn’t hit the chain? What would have happened if one movement changed the course of destiny?





	

The situation seemed less grim, at first. Bad sure, what with Chat chained to the floor with his ring already beeping and an exact copy of him as their enemy. So maybe Ladybug shouldn’t have thought it’d be easy to free her Chat as the copy had also each of her cat’s abilities.

 

In the end it was a small distraction that caused everything to spiral out of control. When the Copycat had yowled and sprinted towards them Ladybug moved. She startled Chat who instinctively flinched back, which was the beginning of something both horrendous and beautiful. Chat’s movement meant that Ladybug missed the chains, missed her opportunity and missed her chance to gain the upper hand.

 

Due to a small mistake Copycat hit his target hitting Ladybug square on the chest.

 

For a second the world moved on as it had before, the noise of cars starting and honking and tooting faintly playing the background. Then Ladybug choked as red cracked and turned to maroon. Copycat crooned in triumphant delight while Chat Noir yowled in horror.

 

“You should have chosen me,” the Copycat hissed gleefully watching as Ladybug swayed the maroon spreading quickly. And snickered again as she almost fell her to knees. The only reason she didn’t was Chat steadying her from behind wrapping an arm around her waist as well as he could. This close to her he could feel the rattling of her chest and the trembling the more and more the false Cataclysm destroyed her.

 

“My Lady,” Chat said choking on the words he didn’t want to say but had to. “Cataclysm -  it, well,-”

 

“I know what it does,” she said through clenched teeth her eyes flickering up to him – oh, they were the most brilliant blue but even the blue was becoming more and more grey with each second – and then back to the crowing of the akuma.

 

Then a smile spread on her face, flaking and brittle and feeble and so at odds with the determined fire in her fading eyes. “We’ll get him now. Can you break your chains?”

 

“My Lady, I already tried! I can’t-”

 

Once again Ladybug interrupted him enunciating each of her words careful and with agony on her breath. “Can. You. Break. _Free_?!”

 

Chat’s eyes flashed golden his teeth grinding together before he steeled himself. “Anything for you, My Lady.” He revelled in her tight smile, just a little stronger than her last one.

 

“Then break free. And get the akuma.”

 

And with a great roar he broke free and with all the fury of a pissed of cat god of destruction and bad luck he bulldozed over Copycat. Less than a minute he needed to knock his Copycat unconscious, fish the akumatized item out of his pocket and turn back to Ladybug with a proud smile, only the blood trickling down a cut on his cheek marring his face.

 

The smile shattered as soon as he saw the red and blue spider cracks on his Lady’s skin and the maroon of her suit and ash of her spots. Even her own quivering smile didn’t call back his own.

 

“Shh, don’t cry, my silly kitten,” she whispered in his ears. He blinked realizing he had crossed the distance between them and had burrowed his nose into her neck, right over he throat. His nose twitched crinkling as he smelled the unpleasant odour of rotting trash before realizing that the smell came from his Lady. Then he whimpered causing her to shush him again.

 

A trembling hand lifted up to pet his hair. This near to her skin Chat realized that red and blue wasn’t the only thing striking about his Lady’s skin. Along her main veins black and purple strands crossed and criss-crossed and pulsed with her heart beat. And these strands were the fake’s Cataclysm given form and rotting his Lad from the inside.

 

He whimpered again, a high-pitched whine of distress also escaping him and his chest vibrating. Oh god, he was purring. Why was he purring, he wasn’t pleased with her literally dying in his arms, so why? Why? Whywhywh-

 

“Ahh, my poor kitten, so upset you’re purring,” Ladbug sighed a note of exhaustion making her voice slurry.

 

Chat tried to talk, tried to ask and tell her to just use her Cure. She’d be fine, surely. She’d be fine. But he couldn’t talk as his purring choked him up and cut off any air threatening to escape his throat.

 

“Chat,” she sighed before pressing something into his hand and, then, miraculously, pressing a chaste kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Protect Paris for me as well, would you?”

 

What, no -

 

And suddenly his arms were empty and he pitched forward falling to his knees. And thousands of ladybugs burst to life and a supernova of them dissipated destroying the picture in Chat’s hand and righting everything but the most important thing. And then he was alone, his former Copycat lying on the ground, unconscious, an akuma no longer.

 

Before he knew sobs ripped out of Chat and tears dripped on the object in his hand – her yo-yo, still a brilliant red with deep black spots. Yet with each of his drops hitting the surface of her weapon the yo-yo changed. Red gave way to black and the black spots melted away as a green glowing paw print appeared in the center of the weapon.

 

His transformation released and Plagg tumbled out silently.

 

“What, what happened?” Adrien whispered mostly to himself and stared at his now empty hand.

 

“Tikki didn’t abandon her Chosen. She also gave us a part of her power. Cleansing it seems.”

 

Adrien perked up hope in his eyes. “Tikki’s her kwami, right?! That means she’s alive?”

 

Just as a relieved smile broke out on Adrien’s face Plagg flew directly in front of his eyes a severe frown on his lips and ancientness in his eyes. It was with an uncharacteristically gentle tone that Plagg spoke to him.

 

“No, kitten. It wasn’t my Cataclysm but it was based on me and that’s enough to be fatal. Tikki is joining her on her last journey but she’s also the responsible one. So she gave you the power to protect Paris fulfilling her Chosen’s wish.”

 

“But-”

 

“Ladybug isn’t alive, Adrien. But we’re now what Hawkmoth wants to achieve, a combination of creation and distraction and-”

 

But Adrien wasn’t listening anymore. It wasn’t important.

 

Nothing was important without his Lady.

 

Life was and would be even more dull without her.

 

No joy, no witty flirting, no backhanded comments.

 

Just him alone.

 

His Lady was gone.


End file.
